The Level of Burden and Coping Strategies among the Caregivers of Older Adults at Selected Areas, Puducherry

Introduction: Today aging is a concern worldwide. Care givers provide support to the old age people, but they face lot of burden while caring for the old age peoples. The objectives of the study were to assess the level of burden & coping strategies among the caregivers of older adults. Methods: A descriptive survey research design of 200 care givers of older adults in the age groups of 30-50 years was selected at Puducherry. The data were collected by using standardized Zarit burden scale and coping strategy inventory. The data were analyzed based on frequency, percentage distribution, mean, and standard deviation, Correlation ‘r’ and chi square test. Results: Out of 200 care givers of older adults, majority 47% had moderate level of burden, 45.5% had mild and 7.5% of care givers of older adults had severe burden. 58.5% had moderate coping strategies and 41.5% had inadequate coping strategies. The level of burden and coping strategies indicate positive correlations and r value is (0.746) which was highly significant at the level of p value <0.000. The association of the levels of burden of socio demographic variables as gender, siblings, type of family, occupation, and income are found to be statistically significant at the level of P value < 0.05. The association of coping strategies levels of demographic variables as marital status, number of siblings and type of family are statistically significant at the level of P<0.05.and occupation and income are highly significant, at the level of P<0.001. Conclusions: The study concluded the majority of care givers are facing burden while providing care to the older adults. Care givers use spiritual aspect of the coping strategies Interventional strategies may be planned to overcome the burden. Community mental health nursing can take up the role to overcome these problems by identifying the high risk population and providing care.